Barbara Lawlor, Gold Hill.   The just kept on coming. Mountain town fire trucks and firefighters crawled through Gold Hill on the one lane dirt road, the vehicles  piled high with families riding their rails, leaning towards the spectators, large squirt guns in hand. Old cars and new cars and horses from the Colorado Mountain Ranch pranced in place waiting for the parade to get going.

Fourth of July celebrating began early in Gold Hill as locals stood in line at the historic Gold Hill Elementary School, eager to devour the melt in your pancakes at the annual breakfast. They couldn’t wait to pour the handmade blueberry syrup over everything on their plates.

Wearing her tall Fourth of July top hat, Gretchen Diefenderfer was in her traditional place as flapjack flipper with her usual welcoming smile, a position she has assumed for decades. A regiment of volunteers turned the sizzling sausage and brewed the coffee.

Some people ate while sitting on the playground swings. It was a splendid morning to relax, take a deep breath and get ready for the parade.

Meanwhile the town’s one main road was filling up fast with people heading for the annual Fourth of July party at the Gold Hill Inn. Cars were parked all along the Horsefal Road heading out of town down Sunshine Canyon and everywhere they fit into a slot within town. The Gold Hill picnic yard was fence to fence people as the bands took their place on the rustic mountain stage, entertaining the hundreds of people who came to eat, drink and dance the day away.

Mountain residents stay home and the flatlanders head to the hills to experience just one morning or afternoon of the good life we live in our high altitude towns every day.

At night, the locals who didn’t go to the Nederland fireworks over Barker Reservoir paid a visit to Folsom Field or other pyrotechnic displays down below.

As John Denver sang, there was “fire in the sky” all over the Boulder County Foothills as mountain residents took time off from hectic lives to appreciate the freedoms we have to enjoy the day with our own traditions.